DESCRIPTION
Advanced Design Applications
Intended Audience
Grades 10-12 (Foundations of Technology highly recommended)
Course Overview
Advanced Design Applications consists of four units including
Manufacturing, Energy and Power, Construction and Transportation.
The Manufacturing unit examines the advances that maintain
manufacturing efficiency, how human consumption affects manufacturing,
how manufacturing affects the standard of living of various
peoples, and how processing and changing raw materials can
produce more desirable products. The Construction unit examines
a number of the factors influencing the design and construction
of permanent and semi-permanent structures, the practices
related to construction maintenance, alteration, and renovation,
and the functions of the primary systems installed in those
structures. The Energy & Power unit explores the relationship
between energy and power technologies and all other technologies,
and how modern energy and power systems impact cultures, societies,
and the environment. It also offers an examination of how
energy and power systems can be made more efficient and how
they may be utilized in problem solving. The Transportation
unit examines the complex networks of interconnected subsystems
that each transportation system comprises and the roles of
these components in the overall functional process of the
system. It also analyzes of the improvements and the impacts
of transportation technologies on the environment, society,
and culture.
Course Length
36 weeks
Connections
The Advanced Design Applications course has been designed
as an advanced study for students engaged in themed academies
and general technology studies that lead to the capacity to
understand how technology’s development, control, and
use is based on design constraints, and human wants and needs.
The structure of the course challenges students to use design
processes so that they can think, plan, design and create
solutions to engineering and technological problems. Students
are actively involved in the organized and integrated application
of technological resources, engineering concepts, and scientific
procedures. Students address the complexities of technology
that stem from designing, developing, using, and assessing
technological systems. In developing a functional understanding
of technology, students comprehend how human conditions and
personal preferences drive technological design and problem
solving. Actively engaged in making and developing, using,
and managing technological systems, students better understand
the role of systems in meeting specific purposes. Students
are able to assess and understand the behavior and operation
of basic technological systems in different contexts. Students
extend and transfer their knowledge of systems to new and
emerging applications by the time they graduate from high
school.
